Legalize it, man…

Here’s an interesting article by Johann Hari about the prospect of drug legalization coming to the UK courtesy of a prominent Tory (for my fellow Yanks who aren’t hip to British political terminology, a Tory is a Conservative, with a definite capital C in the UK).

I guess this is a bit of an “only Nixon could go to China” sort of argument, and it’s one I tend to agree with. Traditional liberal reasoning behind drug legalization is shallow at best and tends to smack of hippie-dippie reasoning chock full of moral relativism. You know, the sort of stuff that gets gobbled up by urban intellectuals in NYC and Los Angeles but goes over like a KKK rally at the Apollo Theater in the rest of America.

I’m gradually realizing that the only hope of any progressive acheivements in American politics will have to come at the hands of some sensible, rational Republican. Now if we could only find a few of those.

Ever since the buttinski Christian Right hijacked the GOP it’s been dominated by slap-dicks like George W. Bush, Rick Santorum and Tom Delay. These are not conservatives, they’re fanatics.

What we need is another Teddy Roosevelt. Someone who understands what government is for and what it’s good at. There are plenty of solid conservative political reasons for legalizing drugs, allowing same-sex marriage and ridding the nation of abject poverty. But as long as the religious moralizers are in charge of the GOP none of this is possible.